by LisaCClark
Hello.
I am Scott Crosby's sister. He passed away in May 2012, early at just 56. I knew him very little in my life, saw him for moments, just two or three times since our teens, and as others in our family died this past year also I've been trying to piece together his life history as the last remaining family member. (Our paths diverged 180 degrees. He resided on Long Island, in NY, CT (mostly Darien) and FL for a short while, and I'm writing this from San Diego, CA after having lived in tech centers across the US.)
According to Metro-North folks I spoke with to write his obituary, Scott was a tower director and supervisor at Grand Central Station covering multiple track areas for a number of years, but was dismissed from that job in the 1980s. He appealed for years to get it back as it was his highest recognized professional accomplishment and he was very concerned about the physics and mechanics of train safety, even continuing to study them for years afterward (as engineering was a family trend). I've heard several stories of what happened around his dismissal or firing, but would like to get confirmations for my own resolution and correct family history. I also know that he continued to attend Metro-North hearings in Connecticut and communicated with employees, though in deficient ways that got him into more legal trouble. He told our father the details of what he knew about the trains' "push v. pull" engineering, and knew he was being stubborn in his relentless pursuit to get the word out, as even his final writings left behind referred to it.
I was present, with a cousin, to clean out Scott's sad last residence and living situation, and have spoken with a number of his lifetime friends already. Described to me as "brilliant", "kind" and "generous", he was also described as "odd", "potentially dangerous" and "easy to anger". It's been suggested to me that he was bi-polar or perhaps schizophrenic; he was certainly smart enough to have Asperger's, lived drug-addled and had had excruciating daily pain since his 20s.
My effort now is to try to make sense of all this and achieve a clearer picture of him, or at least a timeline of what happened with him. I'm considering writing a book about his tragic life, as it included crippling medical maladies and accidents from an early age, substance abuses starting in his teens, and possible psychiatric disorders -- whether the outcome of addictions or their own separate cause is the question -- that made mainstream social establishment difficult and led to his numerous incarcerations and losses of property.
Before contacting businesses and institutions in NY and CT to interview folks and try to get records, I'd like to ask here if anybody knew him at all, and would be willing to speak with me by phone or on a Skype call to share with me who/how he was as a man, an employee, a supervisor, a co-worker/colleague, a friend or a source. I was never told about any individual people and only have Web-published references to him and any documentation he left behind. If I publish anything about him quoting information I receive, all names and titles will be changed if requested or releases obtained, and I'd be happy to sign any confidentiality agreements that would make folks feel more comfortable.
I hope you can help me, or perhaps even forward the link to this post to friends of yours who might have known him or worked with him.
Thank you,
Lisa (Crosby) Clark
San Diego, CA U.S.A.
E: [email protected]
T: +1 858 342 0376
Skype: LisaCClark
I am Scott Crosby's sister. He passed away in May 2012, early at just 56. I knew him very little in my life, saw him for moments, just two or three times since our teens, and as others in our family died this past year also I've been trying to piece together his life history as the last remaining family member. (Our paths diverged 180 degrees. He resided on Long Island, in NY, CT (mostly Darien) and FL for a short while, and I'm writing this from San Diego, CA after having lived in tech centers across the US.)
According to Metro-North folks I spoke with to write his obituary, Scott was a tower director and supervisor at Grand Central Station covering multiple track areas for a number of years, but was dismissed from that job in the 1980s. He appealed for years to get it back as it was his highest recognized professional accomplishment and he was very concerned about the physics and mechanics of train safety, even continuing to study them for years afterward (as engineering was a family trend). I've heard several stories of what happened around his dismissal or firing, but would like to get confirmations for my own resolution and correct family history. I also know that he continued to attend Metro-North hearings in Connecticut and communicated with employees, though in deficient ways that got him into more legal trouble. He told our father the details of what he knew about the trains' "push v. pull" engineering, and knew he was being stubborn in his relentless pursuit to get the word out, as even his final writings left behind referred to it.
I was present, with a cousin, to clean out Scott's sad last residence and living situation, and have spoken with a number of his lifetime friends already. Described to me as "brilliant", "kind" and "generous", he was also described as "odd", "potentially dangerous" and "easy to anger". It's been suggested to me that he was bi-polar or perhaps schizophrenic; he was certainly smart enough to have Asperger's, lived drug-addled and had had excruciating daily pain since his 20s.
My effort now is to try to make sense of all this and achieve a clearer picture of him, or at least a timeline of what happened with him. I'm considering writing a book about his tragic life, as it included crippling medical maladies and accidents from an early age, substance abuses starting in his teens, and possible psychiatric disorders -- whether the outcome of addictions or their own separate cause is the question -- that made mainstream social establishment difficult and led to his numerous incarcerations and losses of property.
Before contacting businesses and institutions in NY and CT to interview folks and try to get records, I'd like to ask here if anybody knew him at all, and would be willing to speak with me by phone or on a Skype call to share with me who/how he was as a man, an employee, a supervisor, a co-worker/colleague, a friend or a source. I was never told about any individual people and only have Web-published references to him and any documentation he left behind. If I publish anything about him quoting information I receive, all names and titles will be changed if requested or releases obtained, and I'd be happy to sign any confidentiality agreements that would make folks feel more comfortable.
I hope you can help me, or perhaps even forward the link to this post to friends of yours who might have known him or worked with him.
Thank you,
Lisa (Crosby) Clark
San Diego, CA U.S.A.
E: [email protected]
T: +1 858 342 0376
Skype: LisaCClark
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